On this day, the cyber crooks went right around the globe from the U.S. to China and Russia with sweeping electronic speed and the exquisite arrogance of complete impunity. Were they now buying gas on my Chase card?

And what about this email from “FRAUD PROTECTION SERVICES” in San Antonio, Texas—a phony name if I ever heard one? Anything from Texas has to be fake so I went to the bank. The nice, young Chase officer furrowed his brows and phoned the security office. A rapid, hard voice instantly clattered forth and demanded I close and open a new card right away. I obeyed.

But wait! I publish a newspaper and I must think of our readers who may experience the same cyber theft.

“How did they get the number of my card?” I asked the nice, young Chase officer who looked pained as he offered, “I don’t know.” He then called the Branch Manager who politely talked in circles and circles and handed me the official Chase pamphlet—30 pages of fine print. He referred to page 9, paragraph 3 (I can’t find the book now so that may not be the right page).

Some time ago, I received a robot call from Chase telling me that somebody was trying to remove thousands of dollars from my account. The voice asked if that was OK. After blurting out to the robot voice that it was not OK, I marched with righteous indignation to the bank to protest—With that much money about to be stolen, a humanoid should have called, not a robot! I received furrowed brows, a sympathetic drone, and vague allusions to: “That’s how the bank does it.”

Yes, well, I am the man who slaps bullying cops so I emailed Jamie Dimon, the handsome young Greek-American Chase President who went to Bronx Science. He came right back with, “Sorry, we get so many of these attempts we have to use computers.”

I foolishly boasted to my nice, young Branch Manager that Jamie Dimon emailed me back. He, in turn, gossiped to the District Manager who went insane—How could you let a customer send an email to Jamie Dimon? The District Manager then had every copy of WestView removed and stuffed into other people’s news boxes around the subway entrance.

My email protest went unheeded because, as I discovered later, you don’t send emails to Jamie Dimon but to the lady in charge of reading Jamie Dimon’s emails. She decides if they should be put on his desk. Oh, but last week the lovely new Branch Manager all on her own, without prompting, smiled and offered “You can leave your papers.”

Computers will not only rob our few bucks from the bank but the human exchange as well.